Party Girl_ A Novel - Anna David [17]
I start to ask Trent about upcoming Sony releases, but when I see that Trent and Brett seem to be far more interested in each other than they are in talking shop with me, I realize I’ve tripped into The Void, and there won’t be any finding my way back tonight.
The Void is what can happen when you’re on a little too much coke and a silent, paranoid, and completely insecure personality usurps the bubbly, impassioned, talkative one coke is supposed to give you. In this state, all I can think about is how uncomfortable I sound and how disinterested people seem to be in me. I’ve tried to escape the void with more lines, but moods, as most anyone who’s done drugs can attest, can be impossible to shift once you’re high.
I make a sudden decision to exit the premises immediately, skip out on dinner, and let my tablemates endure the empty seat. I bid Brett and Trent good-bye, but they’re too busy talking at each other to even hear me.
The next morning, I’m walking up to my cubicle thinking about how exhausted I am despite my ten hours of Ambien-induced sleep when I see Brian scribbling a note for me with one of his Sharpie pens.
“Looking for me?” I ask.
He seems incredibly harried. “Yeah, I was just leaving you a note. We have to talk.”
“Why?” I ask, instantly paranoid.
“I’m worried about your lack of professionalism,” he says, as if he were saying he was worried the office coffee wouldn’t be strong enough. Doesn’t he understand how abrupt he sounds, how horrifying this is to hear? Doesn’t he know that my heart has instantaneously started beating faster than it has during any coke binge? How can he go from being my biggest fan, raving about me to charming British editors one day to taking on this stern, humorless boss role the next?
Brian folds his arms, the bottom of his white button-down unearthing itself from the top of his jeans. “What happened to you last night? Melanie McGrath left me a message saying she thought she saw you walk in but by the time the dinner started, you were AWOL.”
“I felt sick,” I protest somewhat weakly, and remind myself that this isn’t in fact an outright lie. For dramatic effect, I add, “I threw up all night.”
“Amelia, you went in my place. If you felt sick, you should have at least introduced yourself to the publicist and told her how sorry you were that you couldn’t stay for dinner.”
I glare. “Maybe I didn’t want to get her sick.”
“Save it, Amelia,” he says. “And please don’t let that happen again.”
I begin to feel thoroughly irritated with Brian. “Stop lecturing me,” I say, and then, probably too late, I add, “please.”
Something about our conversation reminds me of interactions I’ve had with my dad.
“You need a lecture,” Brian sneers, and I feel myself about to fly into a rage.
“Enough!” I say. “Will you please leave me alone so I can try to feel better?”
Brian just looks at me and shakes his head. “Get it together, Amelia,” he says as he walks away.
7
While I really did convince myself that Chad Milan could seem sexy and appealing over dinner, this possibility has completely evaporated before we’ve even ordered appetizers. I’m not sure if it’s the way he’s tasting the wine (swilling it around his mouth and closing his eyes pretentiously) or the fact that he’s declaring The Da Vinci Code the best book ever written, but I literally want to reach across the table, put my arms around his neck, and squeeze tight. I absolutely hate it when I feel like people, particularly men, aren’t acting like themselves but like someone they think you’d like. What’s further annoying me is his insistence on touching my arm or leg whenever he makes a point. As he tells me how thrilling it was the first time he saw his name in Variety, I realize that he’s not doing anything that terrible, that he’s just being exactly who he is.
“Look, Chad, I wanted to make something clear,” I say, after taking a gulp of wine for liquid courage.
He looks up expectantly: every guy knows this kind of introduction, and that it’s time to stop talking